Corporate Seal / Corporate Stamp

A corporate seal is a device made to either emboss or imprint certain company information onto documents. It can be thought of as the signature of the company or corporation. This information usually includes the company's name, date and state of formation.

Corporate seals are often required when opening corporate bank accounts, distributing stock or membership certificates or conducting other corporate business.

Corporate Seals are generally used by corporations for two purposes:

• Documents which need to be executed as deeds (as opposed to simple contracts), may be executed under the company's common seal.
  
  
• Certain corporate documents, for example share certificates are often issued under the company seal (and some countries required that share certificates be issued under the common seal).

Traditionally, seals used to be used to make an impression on melted wax on the relevant document, although modern seals will usually only leave an indentation or impression on the paper (although sometimes a red wafer is used to imitate old red wax seals, and to make the sealing show up better on photocopies).

What is a deed?

A deed is a signed and usually sealed instrument containing some legal transfer, bargain, or contract.